UVCF Bulletin Vol 1 2012 -Vol. 5 2016

UVCF BULLETIN Volume 1 2012 .

EDITORIAL

The current volume of UVCF Bulletin carries papers by different personalities in the Higher Education fraternity in Uganda.

By and large, the papers emphasise the role of UVCF and the fact that Universities are the engine of Higher Education. Hon. Dr. John Muyingo’s paper emphasised the use for improving provision of Higher Education. He calls for improvement in access, equity, quality, relevance, governance, public-private partnership, and applied research. Although he does not include funding on the list of the areas to improve, he intimates that government will continue to find public Universities and to offer financial succour to private Universities.

It has three parts. The first part carries papers of the theme of university education system. This was the central theme of the third vice chancellors’ forum conference which took place at Hotel Africana on 4th October 2013.

The papers that included in this volume were written around the major sub-themes of that conference.

Planning for Higher Education in Uganda

Regulation of Higher education in Uganda

The status University Education in Uganda

Thoughts on the Philosophy behind Uganda Higher education

Gratitude is extended to all those who kindly accepted to write the papers for this volume of the UVCF Bulletin. The authors were Dr Kisamaba Mugerwa, Prof Moses Golola, Dr James Nkata, and Dr Muwagga Muggagga. Besides these there are papers which were presented as speeches at the conference which are also included in this volume.

This fourth volume of the UVCF Bulletin carries papers on the theme of University Governance with particular reference to Uganda.

The facilitators at the conference adjured the participants especially the heads of Universities to ensure that good governance was inculcated.

The Chief guest at the conference was the vice President of Uganda, His Excellency Hon. Edward Kiwanuka Sekandi. In his presentation, he intimated that government was committed to investing in quality higher education. The chairperson of the UVCF, Professor Venasius Baryamureeba, in his paper argued that the UVCF was of great value to University Governance because the UVCF organised the conference so that themes of the UVCF are continuous with those of the Universities and the conference.

The four main facilitators presented papers as follows: University Governance: Roles of Councils, Senate and Management; Resource mobilisation and Universities in; Student leaders’ role in University governance in and regulatory role of ownership and titular leadership in university governance in Uganda.

In this fifth volume, UVCF continues with the tradition of reporting the outcomes of the UVCF conference materials and related matters.

The theme for the 5th UVCF conference was “financing universities in Uganda”. The facilitators explored a number of aspects related to the theme.

The chief guest this time was the Prime Minister of Uganda, the Right Honourable Ruhakana Rugunda. In his statement at the conference, he underlined the importance of UVCF seeking new ways and means of funding higher education.

The key note speaker as Ambassador Urban Andersson who addressed the issue of Research funding. He pointed out that funding required responsibility.

Good financial management called for having financial policies. These helped to establish guidelines for developing financial goals and objectives, making financial decisions, reporting the financial status of a university, and managing the universities’ funds. Nawangwe further intimated that sound practices and principles required each member of staff to be accountable for safeguarding the assets and resources of the university.

Sejjaaka in his paper revealed that the rush to seek higher education had led to a failure in delivering quality and maintaining a research agenda in public universities. The fact is that university education should not be taken as a privilege. Public universities must become Business-like and debureaucratize.